I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
I am so depressed over the drive of the Fundamentalist Christian rights success at trying to erase the LGBTQ+ people. Now they are trying to again return to the discredited idea that sexual ordination can be changed if you torture a kid badly enough. I read so many horror stories of kids as young as 13 and 14 having their genitals hooked up to electrical shock devices, being beaten, being sexual abused so that they would be turned off by same sex hook ups, being curatively raped for both lesbian and gay boys, and so many more. And it doesn’t work. People can be forced to control behavior and lie about their feelings. But sexual attraction can not be changed.
I keep saying the same question to those straight cis people who think orientation or gender is simply a choice rebellious teenagers make. Can you willingly change your attraction from straight to gay and live that life for a year having sex with your same gender? Can you do happily what same sex couples do to please each other sexually? Can you stop being the gender you were assigned at birth and change every aspect of your gendered life and live that way for a few years to show me it is a choice? They tell me that is stupid and why should they … they are the normal ones!
I feel sorry for the kids because of the stories of abuse I have read about at these conversion camps, at these “therapist offices”. The male survivor site has an entire forum dedicated to this subject. Why is it so important to these people to wipe us out socially / publically. Why can’t they let the kids be, why must they sexually force them to be mini me straight cis clones of the parents.
As I said I don’t understand and I do know it is not all Christians. But seriously we need progressive Christian churches to stand up to these groups. After 9/11 we kept hearing people demand Muslims in the US denounce publically the terrorist act of other Muslims. Recently a Muslim won the democratic nominee for NY City and democratic politicians were demanding he denounce every bad thing ever done by a Muslim. Why is that a one way street? Shouldn’t white people be required to denounce bad white people? Shouldn’t Christians be required to speak out against hateful Christians.
I am seeing a return to the 1970s Anita Bryant rhetoric and no one seems to see the connection. She used her faith to claim that no one wanted to see gay teachers in public schools indoctrinating and recruiting (sexualizing) kids. Well these are the same words used against the gay teachers and trans people today by the republicans and hate Christians. It was the anti-Christian oppression Samuel Alito wrote in his ruling that just having books with people happy to celebrate a same sex wedding was discrimination against Christians who did not want people to be happy at same sex weddings. Read his ruling it really says that kids being read a picture book of people being happy at a same sex wedding is oppression and discrimination against Christians.
I am tired. I am 62 years old. I fought this fight as a child, suffered from it, faced the discrimination, lost jobs, got assaulted at work and school, lost promotions, and had hate poured out on me at every turn for at least 25 years. Hell as I was being raped as a child I had anti-gay bigotry screamed at me. Think on that for a mindfuck. Those raping me screamed I deserved it as a 7 year old because I clearly was a faggot. I lost my right to keep going with my Army career due to a new unit commander who bragged about his deep Christian faith. He called me into his office, told me he knew I was out to my unit and even though I was respected, well liked, and had the skills to save the unit even on the day I was leaving, he was not going to tolerate an “evil deviant homosexual” to be in the army or his unit. I feel so sorry for the kids kicked out of their homes to have to sell their bodies on the street to strangers for food and lodging due to this hate. I am so tired as history is repeating and I need to find the strength to fight for the LGBTQ+ kids once again. I don’t think I can. Hugs
The therapy practice tries to influence gender or sexuality identity and has been denounced by experts for negative effects to patients’ mental or physical health.
From left to right: Family Foundation president Victoria Cobb, Founding Freedoms Law Center lawyer Josh Hetzler, and counselors/plaintiffs John and Janet Raymond celebrate a court ruling to overturn a ban on talk-based conversion therapy. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
A Henrico County Circuit Court judge ordered that licensed counselors be allowed to engage underage clients in a controversial form of talk therapy about gender identity and sexual orientation that medical and mental health experts say can be harmful.
The case underpinning the new consent decree with the Virginia Department of Health Professions stemmed from a 2020 state law banning “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Last year, Front Royal-based counselors John and Janet Raymond challenged the ban.
“The Raymonds desired to engage in talk therapy with minors through voluntary conversations, prayer, and providing written materials such as Scripture, but Virginia’s law and regulations prohibited them from doing so,” read a Tuesday statement from the Founding Freedoms Law Center, the Family Foundation’s legal arm that represented the Raymonds in the case. The Center hailed the court’s ruling as a “landmark free speech victory.”
Conversion therapy entails attempts to change or influence a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The American Psychological Association has denounced conversion therapy, stating that it is not an accepted form of therapy based on medical or scientific evidence, as has the American Medical Association. The groups and advocates have also said conversion therapy is used as a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and lifestyles.
Conversion therapy treatments have garnered national controversy over the years and range from inducing nausea, providing electric shocks to having people snap an elastic band around their wrist when they become aroused by same-sex erotic images or thoughts.
The Raymonds told the court they previously practiced talk therapy for conversion therapy clients, as they do with their other clients. The ban meant they couldn’t have conversations to try to guide clients away from embracing their sexual or gender identities. The new consent decree means they can practice conversion therapy again.
Opponents of the practice have argued that conversion therapy can put LGBTQ+ people at higher risk ofmental health issues like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse or suicide.
The Raymonds emphasized that the talk therapy they engage in with their clients is voluntary and stressed that nothing about their case should be construed as allowing any counselor to perform acts associated with conversion therapy, such as electro-shock therapy.
“With this court order, every counselor in Virginia will now be able to speak freely, truthfully and candidly with clients who are seeking to have those critical conversations about their identity and to hear faith-based insights from trusted professionals,” said Josh Hetzler, the couple’s legal counsel with the Founding Freedoms Law Center.
The Family Foundation is a Christian and conservative advocacy group and legal firm that opposes same-sex marriage, supports more parental input in public education, and supports increased restrictions on abortions. While the consent decree was ordered on June 4, Family Foundation and the plaintiffs announced it on July 1.
“We thank God that He gives us the freedom to speak, to believe, to seek His wisdom,” John Raymond said Tuesday in the Family Foundation’s office in Richmond — formerly a house that Confederate General Robert E. Lee rented following his surrender at Appomattox that ended the Civil War.
Raymond said he felt like Virginia’s 2020 law gave him no choice but to challenge it and called it a “hostile ideological invasion within our country.”
Likewise, Hetzler noted a “growing number of parents” seeking counseling services with a religious lens for their children “in an era when gender dysphoria has become a contagion among young people.”
Virginia lawmakers weigh in
Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, noted on a press call Tuesday that there have been bipartisan efforts to support LGBTQ constituents in Virginia’s legislature in recent years. When the conversion therapy ban was clearing the House of Delegates five years ago, 11 Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in voting for it. Seven Republican lawmakers — to include then-delegate and now Attorney General Jason Miyares — abstained from voting. Over in the Senate, a former GOP lawmaker joined Democrats in supporting that version as well.
While Miyares did not express support or dissent in 2020, his office has signed the consent decree effectively lifting the ban on conversion therapy.
As attorney general, Miyares has pressed for banning transgender youth from participating in sports teams of their identity as a suite of anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the state during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration.
Localities have pushed back on former Gov. Ralph Northam’s order that transgender students be able to use the bathrooms of their identities. And an in-progress constitutional amendment to remove a defunct same-sex marriage ban from the state’s constitution has advanced with slim bipartisan support.
Advocates for that law say it’s important, as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expressed interest in revisiting a decade-old ruling that protects gay marriage federally. He expressed the opinion after the court struck down federal abortion protections. Should marriage protections fall, Virginia is among states that would immediately ban the unions.
Roem reiterated the risks of conversion therapy, saying medical care for transgender people like hormone therapies or surgeries are constantly subject to medical review to assess quality of care, while talk-based conversion therapy isn’t.
Roem, the state’s first transgender senator, said she has been on the receiving end of efforts to dissuade her from her sexual identity but it never stopped her from embracing being transgender.
“I spent 13 years in Catholic school — I heard everything,” she said. “I am just as trans today at age 40 as I was when I got into Catholic school in 4th grade.”
Ultimately, what the conversion therapy ban came down to for Democrats, she and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax said, is public health. Given how various medical associations have denounced conversion therapy, they felt it had no place in state-licensed counselor’s services.
“I have no problem if somebody wants to go look at religious counseling from their priest or their minister, their rabbi, their imam — that’s perfectly fine,” Surovell said. “When somebody goes to get therapy from somebody licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, there’s a different set of rules applied. You can’t just say whatever you want because you have a license. That’s why we have professional standards, that’s why we have statutes.”
While several studies have shown negative mental and physical health impacts of conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ people, the Raymonds said a 2024 report in the United Kingdom called for more research on gender identity services for minors. However, the report’s author noted their belief that “no LGBTQ+ group should be subjected to conversion practice.”
With an appeal deadline having passed, lawmakers could further tweak their 2020 law when they convene next year.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the order was issued in June and announced in July. Sen. Surovell also said “imam” rather than “mom.”
In their celebratory video below, the group rants about LGBTQ “contagion among young people.”
Last year the Family Foundation joined a hate group coalition seeking to “save” the 2024 Republican Party platform from caving on LGBTQ issues.
In 2023, the Family Foundation successfully pressured Virginia lawmakers against repealing the state’s still-existing ban on same-sex marriage.
Also in 2023, a spokesman for the group claimed that they’d been refused service by a Virginia restaurant due to their anti-LGBTQ activism.
MONUMENTAL VICTORY
Founding Freedoms Law Center won a major, free speech victory for all Virginia counselors—securing their right to offer compassionate, common-sense talk therapy to minors who seek help with unwanted sexual feelings or identity confusion. pic.twitter.com/ahoJ5rY68J
— The Family Foundation of Virginia (@TFFVA) July 1, 2025
All slashed in order to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy.
Let’s call it what it really is. Alligator Auschwitz. A MAGA concentration camp. The prisoners of Alcatraz were CONVICTED criminals. None of these people have been charged with anything. They have not been arrested. They have been abducted.
If it took 8 days to build a massive concentration camp in Florida then it means they could build and house the homeless at any point but choose not to
Gillibrand apologizes to Mamdani over ‘jihad’ comments – POLITICOSo I am glad Gillibrand apologized but she should really do so publicly, not privately, given her smear against him was done publicly, on live radio in fact.
The 11th circuit court of appeals ruled that a transgender teacher cannot state her pronouns because it does not violate her 1st Amendment rights as a state actor.Other courts have held teachers have a 1st Amendment right to misgender trans students.www.courtlistener.com/docket/68501…
Heads up, the fight is not over with respect to the trans care medicaid amendment. Marjorie Taylor Greene has reintroduced it on the House side. Call your house reps now and tell them not to approve it. Even republicans, especially moderate Republicans.
Everything is bigger in Texas—except, apparently, memory of devastating mass shootings.In late June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill known as the Anti-Red Flag Act, which preemptively bans the creation or enforcement of extreme risk protective orders.
The president is hawking fragrances while the State of Florida is celebrating its first concentration camp by handing out swag.I'm rooting for the asteroid now more than ever.#DontStopBelieving 🤞
Yes, this is true, albeit not current story it happened in 2005. There are credible sources confirming this story, BBC and Guardian reported this in 2006.
What would you call a society where it is both more expensive to be disabled and just live, and harder to earn that money to live when you live with a disability?I think we have to face some harsh realities.
I want to thank everyone that encouraged me to go forward with what is to me a scary operation. I love everyone that wrote / called me to tell me their stories. I had my second appointment with the eye doctor. Even with the prism that took some of the fussy out of the letters I was seeing the best they could do for me was 20/70. I have no idea of what that means but she asked if I was driving and I replied yes which seemed to upset the doctor. The office is wonderful and very LGBTQ+ affirmative and they included and joked with us totally comfortably. I had to laugh when the doctor asked the eye person to get his husband and she went out and told Ron he had been summoned.
It seems she feels I need to have the surgery to see. She is unsure if they will do both eyes but feels they will. She explained what she felt would be our costs, and what would happen to my eyesight if we did not go forward. Ron told them about how high the magnification is on my monitors and how he has to try to step back to read everything smoothly. He told them it was unacceptable my sight would get any worse and I would lose the ability to do what I love, be on the computer with all of you.
So they set up an appointment with the eye surgeon. I was shocked at how fast it was happening. I figured I would have a couple of months, but the appointment is for next Monday. Ok I know everyone has told me how great their experience was but … I admit to being scared. My eyes are so important to me and how I live my life. I could give many organs but if I lose my sight my life as I love it is over.
The eye doctor is a wonderful older lady who was concerned about the costs for us and Ron told her we would manage that it was important enough. She cautioned us not to be dragged into expensive things I man not need as most people getting the normal corrective lens were more than satisfied and had good vision. She warned that the market was in convincing us to pay for “Upgraded corrective lenses” that I may not need or could be avoided with a cheap pair of reader glasses.
I have to admit she was far different from the big business eye place Ron and I went to several years ago. I was not yet 62 so they told me as soon as I was I needed to see them to have the cataracts removed. Ron was already over that age for Medicare to pay for it and they pushed him hard to have the surgery. His eyesight was far better and less cloudy than mine. They just wanted the money from Medicare. Plus after my exam they took me to their glasses section. After picking out what I thought was a pair of reasonably priced frames they totaled up my new glasses … at $1,400.00
I looked at Ron, we had never paid that for any glasses. I told them I needed to think on it and never went back. The only issue I have is do I pay extra for the “corrective lenses”? If anyone could leave me a message on their experience either way, I would be so grateful. Ron was such a cheerleader for me after we left the eye doctor’s office saying how he felt this would be so good for me and make what I love doing on the computer so easy. I wish I felt as confidant as he does. Hugs
A crop field in Oxnard, California, U.S., June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
Lisa Tate is a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County, California, an area that produces billions of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables each year, much of it hand-picked by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Tate knows the farms around her well. And she says she can see with her own eyes how raids carried out by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the area’s fields earlier this month, part of President Donald Trump’s migration crackdown, have frightened off workers.
“In the fields, I would say 70% of the workers are gone,” she said in an interview. “If 70% of your workforce doesn’t show up, 70% of your crop doesn’t get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work. Most farmers here are barely breaking even. I fear this has created a tipping point where many will go bust.”
In the vast agricultural lands north of Los Angeles, stretching from Ventura County into the state’s central valley, two farmers, two field supervisors and four immigrant farmworkers told Reuters this month that the ICE raids have led a majority of workers to stop showing up.
That means crops are not being picked and fruit and vegetables are rotting at peak harvest time, they said.
One Mexican farm supervisor, who asked not to be named, was overseeing a field being prepared for planting strawberries last week. Usually he would have 300 workers, he said. On this day he had just 80. Another supervisor at a different farm said he usually has 80 workers in a field, but today just 17.
A Guatemalan immigrant works on a crop field at a farm in the Kern County, California, U.S., June 19, 2025. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
BAD FOR BUSINESS
Most economists and politicians acknowledge that many of America’s agricultural workers are in the country illegally, but say a sharp reduction in their numbers could have devastating impacts on the food supply chain and farm-belt economies.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said an estimated 80% of farmworkers in the U.S. were foreign-born, with nearly half of them in the country illegally. Losing them will cause price hikes for consumers, he said.
“This is bad for supply chains, bad for the agricultural industry,” Holtz-Eakin said.
Over a third of U.S. vegetables and over three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The state’s farms and ranches generated nearly $60 billion in agricultural sales in 2023.
If they show up to work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again.
Migrant worker
Of the four immigrant farmworkers Reuters spoke to, two are in the country illegally. These two spoke on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of being arrested by ICE.
One, aged 54, has worked in U.S. agricultural fields for 30 years and has a wife and children in the country. He said most of his colleagues have stopped showing up for work.
“If they show up to work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again,” he said.
The other worker in the country illegally told Reuters, “Basically, we wake up in the morning scared. We worry about the sun, the heat, and now a much bigger problem – many not returning home. I try not to get into trouble on the street. Now, whoever gets arrested for any reason gets deported.”
Item 1 of 4 An immigrant worker harvests crops during the weekend, as labor shortages risk leaving fields unpicked, in Oxnard, California, U.S., June 22, 2025. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
[1/4]An immigrant worker harvests crops during the weekend, as labor shortages risk leaving fields unpicked, in Oxnard, California, U.S., June 22, 2025. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
To be sure, some farmworker community groups said many workers were still returning to the fields, despite the raids, out of economic necessity.
The days following a raid may see decreased attendance in the field, but the workers soon return because they have no other sources of income, five groups told Reuters.
Workers are also taking other steps to reduce their exposure to immigration agents, like carpooling with people with legal status to work or sending U.S. citizen children to the grocery store, the groups said.
ICE CHILL
Trump conceded in a post on his Truth Social account this month that ICE raids on farmworkers – and also hotel workers – were “taking very good, long-time workers away” from those sectors, “with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”
Trump later told reporters, “Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers.” He added, “They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great.”
He pledged to issue an order to address the impact, but no policy change has yet been enacted.
Trump has always stood up for farmers, said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly in response to a request for comment on the impact of the ICE raids to farms. “He will continue to strengthen our agricultural industry and boost exports while keeping his promise to enforce our immigration laws,” she said.
Bernard Yaros, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics, a nonpartisan global economics advisory firm, said in a report published on June 26 that native-born workers tend not to fill the void left by immigrant workers who have left.
“Unauthorized immigrants tend to work in different occupations than those who are native-born,” he said.
ICE operations in California’s farmland were scaring even those who are authorized, said Greg Tesch, who runs a farm in central California.
Farmers and laborers in California told Reuters that many field workers have stopped showing up to pick fruit and vegetables. Emma Jehle reports.
“Nobody feels safe when they hear the word ICE, even the documented people. We know that the neighborhood is full of a combination of those with and without documents,” Tesch said.
“If things are ripe, such as our neighbors have bell peppers here, (if) they don’t harvest within two or three days, the crop is sunburned or over mature,” said Tesch. “We need the labor.”
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Reporting by Tim Reid, Sebastian Rocandio, Pilar Olivares and Leah Douglas. Editing by Mary Milliken and Rosalba O’Brien.
Surprise surprise. A week after Sarah McBride gives cover fire for throwing trans people under the bus, some Dems are privately indicating they’ll capitulate on trans youth healthcare and citing the pseudoscientific Cass Report literally drafted in consultation with hate groups.
1. A government official has informed us that the Trump administration is likely intentionally not complying with a trans passport ruling in an Erin In The Morning exclusive.One person was told, "We don't answer to courts."Subscribe to support our journalism.
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